Marco Mancuso is a critic and curator in the field of Digital Technologies applied to Arts, Design and Contemporary Culture. Founder and Editor-In-Chief at Digicult and Digimag Journal (part of The Leonardo Affiliate Program), he teaches “Multimedia Arts Theory” at MAIND Interaction Design Master at SUPSI in Lugano, "Web 2.0 & Media Art Management" at NABA Academy in Milan, “Digital Publishing for the Arts” at Academy of Fine Art in Bergamo and is visiting professor at Transmedia-Postgraduate Program in Arts+Media+Design in Brussels.

Marco Mancuso has been expertising from years on wider subjects like open communication, social networking and digital publishing and is now studying new economical Internet models for art and culture: with the project “Fracty: Trasformazioni Affini”, he theorized an online platform creating open and p2p professional links between investors, public and private, from the scientific-technological field, professionals and students in the field of technologies applied to art, design and contemporary culture. He recently developed the “Digicult Editions” open-publishing online service.

Lecturing internationally and writing critical texts for media art publications and catalogues, articles, interviews and essays for Digicult, Marco Mancuso curated for MCD-Musiques et Cultures Digitales the publication “The Open Future” - Issue 63 in 2012 and the carde-blanche “Art Industries” - Issue 74 in 2014. He was included in the publication Cultural Blogging in Europe by LabForCulture.org in 2010.

I went to IKEA about a week ago. It was getting dark and I was on foot. Those tall brick chimneys with their illuminated yellow and blue plastic halos, that mark the car park at the Swedish superstore’s Croydon branch, shone like strange sentinels over the local congregation of skateboarding juveniles. I stepped in through the doors and on into the light and the smell of pine and food and new things.

I’ve been wondering in the aisles of the storeroom section for a while, when I realise that I am not looking at the fifty dishcloths called VÅRLIGT as household items. I am reading them as art and wondering why the curators left them so little white space to breathe in (they were a little cramped next to TEKLA).

Postmodernism deals with structural critique, with subversion and appropriation. Structures are to be mistrusted, we embrace a plurality of narratives. The entirety of (art) history is there to be referenced and disassembled. Everything is valid. From every perspective. Everything is equal ­ flattened in order to prevent discrimination. All art points beyond itself in wildly eclectic spatters of meaning. The hierarchy between ‘low’ and ‘high’ culture ­ between all experience in fact ­ has been collapsed. Thus my mind no longer has the capacity to elevate my experience in an art gallery over that of IKEA. They read the same. That is not a bad thing. (How could it be?) It is, however, a thing.

Locus Sonus is a France-based research network that mainly focuses on the relationship between sound and space. The Centre’s first inception and early projects date back to 2005, and during this ten-year activity Locus Sonus has collaborated with several international research labs, such as the sociology lab CNRS, LAMES in Aix en Provence, the CRESSON, the architecture lab CNRS in Grenoble, the School of the Art Institute in Chicago (SAIC) and other partners worldwide.

At the heart of Locus Sonus there is a strong interest in the multidisciplinary nature of audio art forms within the framework of networked/multiuser sonic spaces. Peter Sinclair – together with Jérôme Joy, is Locus Sonus research director. Peter is a digital media and sound artist, professor and supervisor of the sound department at the École Supérieure d’Art in Aix en Provence, and member of the French Ministry of Culture’s scientific council for research studies at the Fine Arts Department.

Elena Biserna is an Italian researcher (she is also part of the Digicult team of authors http://www.digicult.it/authors/elena-biserna/) whose interests primarily focus on the interdisciplinary areas of aesthetic research, concentrating particular attention on expanded sounds and contextual, urban, ephemeral and participatory practices. Elena has recently joined the Locus Sonus lab team and has been working on the construction of a chronology and a catalogue of artistic projects using mobile media (Walkman, MP3 players, portable radios, sensor based computing, mobile phones, applications, locative media and GPS) from the 1980s to now.What follows is the outcome of an exchange of ideas with both Peter and Elena, which opens up new insights on the marvellous world of audio streaming, mobile sound practices and human networks.

This is the interview I did to Sedition, the online platform that is changing the market of international contemporary art. They do not release many interviews, so it's an exclusive chance to better know this service (founded in 2011 by Harry Blain) that displays and sells artworks in digital format giving everyone an easy, enjoyable and social way to experience art-collecting at affordable prices

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An online platform for contemporary and media artists, has been displaing and selling their artworks in digital format from about 3 years. For those who don’t know it, its called Sedition (http://www.seditionart.com/) and it gives everyone an easy, enjoyable and social way to experience art-collecting at affordable prices, for connected screens and devices, TVs, smartphones, tablets, apps and computers.

They do not release many interviews, even if feedbacks confirm how this service has been growing in terms of numbers and businesses and is changing the way we can experience contemporary art nowaday. And how also the market of contemporary art will probably change the next years, due to the Internet and Social Media services.

The company was founded in 2011 by Harry Blain, English art dealer and gallery owner that in 2002 started Haunch of Venison gallery with Graham Southern, Founding Director of Christie’s (London) Post-War & Contemporary Art Department until 2011. In 2007 Blain and Southern sold Haunch of Venison to Christie’s International plc and after that launched a new gallery, Blain | Southern (http://www.blainsouthern.com/).

An interview by Filippo Lorenzin to Benjamin Gaulon, artist, researcher, internationally known for his détournement, hacking, recycling and critical making practices. Founder at Recyclism Hacklab and author of the essay "Hardware hacking and recycling strategies in an age of technological obsolescence"

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What happens in a technological context where a device becomes obsolete within a very short time? A culture of obsolescence takes place, as regards technological devices and the thinking and behavior of people alike.

These are just some of the central themes of the study carried out by the artist, researcher and college lecturer Benjamin Gaulon.

His work is also known as “Recyclism” as his works used to be labelled. The nature of his projects is significantly varied, spanning from softwares, installations, pieces of hardware to web based projects, interactive works and street art interventions that often explore détournement, hacking and recycling practices.

In a time of economical crisis and cuts to art and culture, it’s increasing the number of international examples, cultural subjects, creative professionals (artists, designers, hackers, makers, musicians, filmmakers …) and industries – ICT, science research, manufacturing processes, robotcs, biotechnologies, artificial intelligence and more – involved in the standardization of sustainable research and development models in order to activate processes of Open Research that are functional to the creation of a “cultural object”.

Marco Mancuso, Digicult Director has been invited at Bozar Festival in Brussels - within the symposium “Tools for the Unkwnown Future. Art & Digital Technologies: Disruptive Innovation Practices For An Unknown Future” - to talk about the Carte Blanche curated for the issue #74 of Magazine MCD tomorrow. MCD magazine Director Anne Cècile Warms will introduce the whole publication leaving Marco Mancuso a room to talk about his researches and the interviews curated within the world of international media art.

For this issue Marco Mancuso focused on the most valuable case studies of Open Innovation strategies in the world of artistic media production, looking at those hidden forms of collaborations between artists, designer, scientists, practioneers, curators, critics, universities, institutions and industries in the world of ICT technologies, applied and medical sciences, open hardware and free software, computational and interaction design, audiovisual technologies…